Against the urgent backdrop and the scale of the current pandemic challenges, what poses the biggest complications for financial institutions are that there are multi-faceted dimensions, scenarios and granular factors involved – hence the planning, modelling and formulation of business response strategies are not always easily compartmentalized. Moreover, beyond 'first wave' phases of lockdown, mitigation and suppression, the expectation is that virtualization of work and digital interactions could continue. This 'new normal' will translate into bigger and more varied data sets which firms can employ in their business planning and insight generation efforts.

In this regard, Celent believes that the coming convergence of QuantTech, Data Science and its ecosystem of technologies that have emerged in recent years, were made for such a time as this.